Motor Control Theories Quiz

Motor Control, Learning, and Development

• This course (DPT 542 Fall 2024) covers motor control, learning, and development.
• The course objective is to apply motor control, learning, and development theories to the observation of normal human movement across the lifespan.
• The course content includes defining motor control, learning, and development.
• The curriculum emphasizes creating a framework for analyzing the relationships between individual factors, task demands, and environmental constraints on movement patterns.
• The course also includes how motor control theory impacts interpretations of motor behavior and guides clinical practice.

Importance: APTA Physical Therapy Identity

• Physical therapy promotes movement systems as a foundation for improving health within society.
• The movement system integrates body systems at all levels of bodily function.
• Human movement is a complex behavior influenced by social, environmental, and personal factors.

Significance of Physical Therapists

• Physical therapists are considered movement experts.
• They retrain patients with motor control problems.
• Therapists provide therapeutic interventions to change or enhance movement capacity.
• They aim to optimize movement.

Assumptions of Motor Control, Development & Learning

• These processes are influenced by the nervous system.
• Analyzing motor behavior provides indirect insight into brain function.

Motor Control

• Motor control includes the processes for organizing and regulating posture and movement.
• Defined as the ability to regulate or direct mechanisms essential to movement.
• This involves the action system (how the CNS organizes muscles and joints in coordinated functional movements).
• The Perception System (how sensory information from the environment and the body is processed).
• Goal-directed movement within the environment utilizes action and perception.

Motor Learning

• Motor learning is the process of acquiring knowledge about the world.
• Acquiring the capability of skilled action from experience and practice.
• It results in relatively permanent changes in behavior.
• It's inferred from observed behavior, not directly measured.

Motor Development

• Motor development (Movement Science Across the lifespan) examines the emergence of posture and movement, along with skill development in mobility and manipulation across the lifespan.

Time Scales of Interest

• Time spans are shown relating motor development, learning, and control.
• Motor development is a broader, long-term process, while motor learning is a process of acquiring new skills, and motor control is the moment-to-moment regulation of movement.

Components of Motor Control

• Postural control is a key component for maintaining balance.
• Movement control involves mobility.
• Manipulation involves moving or controlling objects with the extremities.

Posture and Movement

• Posture and movement exist along a continuum.
• Posture is holding a body configuration (e.g., standing, sitting, kneeling).
• Movement changes or transitions between postures (discrete tasks) or locations (continuous tasks).
• Movement involves manipulating the environment. This is further categorized into static/sustained or dynamic/changing postures and movement. This includes stability, mobility or manipulation.

Task Constraints on Movement

• The functional demands of a task (e.g., mobility, stability, manipulation) influence movement patterns.
• The analysis of these task demands looks at functional categories of tasks (mobility, stability, manipulation).
• These classifications of tasks can influence how to categorize tasks.

Stability

• Stability occurs when the base of support is stable.
• Stability tasks involve maintaining a stable posture or position, with limited or non-moving support surfaces.
• Stability tasks often require less attention than mobility or manipulation tasks.

Mobility

• Mobility involves changing or moving the base of support.
• Examples include walking and running.
• Mobility tasks are often more complex than stability tasks and necessitate increased attention to the demands of the movement and interaction with the environment.

Manipulation

• Manipulation involves moving or controlling objects with extremities.
• Examples include picking up a cup, kicking a ball, or carrying an object like a tray.
• These tasks require more complex movements than stability or mobility tasks, requiring increased attentional demands.

Environmental Constraints

• Environmental factors shape movement patterns.
• Regulatory features (e.g., height of a chair, shape of an object) influence how a task is performed or need conforming to.
• Non-regulatory features, such as room color or noise, may or may not influence the movement but are not essential to successful performance of the task.

Task and Environment Variability

• Open motor tasks (e.g., walking on uneven surfaces, catching a ball) involve unpredictable and changeable environments.
• Closed motor tasks (e.g., sitting, standing) involve predictable and unchanging or static environments.
• Variability and Predictability of the task vs environment are directly related to the type of movement.

Defining Different Types of Movement Tasks

• Several ways of defining movement tasks: discrete, continuous, closed, open or stability, mobility or manipulation.
• Different categorizations and understanding the environment influence movement.

Theories of Motor Control

• This section reviews historical and contemporary theories of motor control, including reflex theory, hierarchical theory, motor programming theory, system theory, dynamic systems theory, and ecological theory.

Models of Motor Control

• Different motor control models (Hierarchical, Systems and Reflex Theory) represent the different mechanisms that contribute to movement control.
• These models each describe different aspects and influence how clinicians might conceptualize and/or troubleshoot movement.
• These models may influence how we evaluate and treat patients' movement issues.

Reflex Theory

• The reflex is the building block of movement and complex movement is a combination of reflexes.

Hierarchical Theory

• Each level of the hierarchy is subordinate to a single root, top-down control.
• This hierarchical model suggests that higher-level structures control lower-level ones in a top-down fashion.
• It is associated with voluntary movements through control of reflexes.

Motor Programming Theory

• Motor programs are the rules or stored instructions for movement.
• They are flexible, unlike reflexes.
• They are used for specific tasks, such as walking, kicking, or throwing a ball, and are stored in the brain as rules of the movement patterns.

Schema Theory

• A theory of memory structures that involve recall and recognition using a memory structure for performance and evaluation of the task.
• Key elements include schemas, invariant features, and parameters for performance of a task.

Systems Theory (Multiple perspectives)

• This section describes concepts of system theory.
• System Theory perspectives highlight the idea of interconnectedness and redundancy (multiple ways to achieve the same outcome in movement).
• The system theory view suggests the concept of levels may be meaningless, as it emphasises the importance of distributed function.
• System Theory has several advantages: command flexibility, redundancy, and resilience to injury.

Dynamic Systems Theory

• Dynamic systems theory is another systems theory that focuses on how interactions between elements (including the musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary, and integumentary systems and the interaction with the environment) produce patterns of movement.
• It emphasizes self-organization, non-linear relationships, and control parameters.
• Key concepts include attractor states (preferred movement patterns) and control parameters.

Ecological Theory

• This theory of movement focuses on the environment and the individual's perception of the environment.
• It highlights that movement emerges from the interaction between the individual and the environment.
• Individual's perception of the environment is key to movement, and is specific to the task being performed.
• The perception of the environment affects movement, and different environments have different affordances for differing movements.

Clinical Implications of Different Theories

• This section discusses the practical application and limitations of each theory in analyzing and treating motor control impairments in a clinical setting.
• There are several implications or applications highlighted relating each theory to clinical practice.

Summary of Motor Control, Development & Learning

• The course summarizes motor control, learning, and development and identifies unique concepts, clinical utility, and limitations of each system in a clinical context.
• The course emphasizes the need to consider context (task, person, and environment) and emphasize importance of the interactional component.
• The next section focuses on the neural contributions involved with the motor control concepts of UE (upper extremities) reaching, grasping, and manipulation.

Test your understanding of motor control theories and concepts with this quiz. Explore key topics such as stability, mobility, reflex theory, and the cognitive processes involved in movement. Ideal for students of kinesiology or anyone interested in the science of movement.